Vagrant ssh promtps for password

Question

I have a strange problem with vagrant ssh. Similar questions, like Vagrant asks for password after SSH key update, or (vagrant & ssh) require password, or Vagrant ssh authentication failure do not help me.

So, the plot.

I have a virtual machine running Ubuntu 14.04.3. All setup was made according to this article: https://blog.engineyard.com/2014/building-a-vagrant-box.

Note: I can ssh to this virtual machine using Putty with vagrant's insecure_private_key (converted to *.ppk), which is located "C:/Users/Gino/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key. Password is not promtped.

Then I packaged this virtual machine, init vagrant with this package and ran vagrant up. I got "Warning: Authentication failure. Retrying..." error. But nevertheless I could vagrant ssh to this machine, but it asked me a password. And if I tried to ssh to it using Putty with the necessary key (as in the first paragraph), it asked me for a password too.

I vagrant halted this machine, found it in VirtualBox VM's list and ran it manually. After that I tried to ssh to this machine using Putty with the same key and succeed - I could logon without any password.

Result of vagrant ssh-config, if needed:

h:\VagrantBoxes\main-server32>vagrant ssh-config
Host default
  HostName 127.0.0.1
  User vagrant
  Port 2222
  UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null
  StrictHostKeyChecking no
  PasswordAuthentication no
  IdentityFile "C:/Users/Gino/.vagrant.d/insecure_private_key"
  IdentitiesOnly yes
  LogLevel FATAL

My Vagrantfile (it was generated automatically, almost nothing there, only a suggested line from comments was added):

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
  config.vm.box = "vagrant-main-server32"

  config.ssh.insert_key = false
end

So what's the mystery here? Why ssh using key works without vagrant up and fails and prompts for password with it?

Note. Another funny thing: it still can not authenticate during vagrant up. But if at the time when errors "authentication failure" appear I log in to vm through virtualbox, it also succeed to log in in the window with vagrant up. And then vagrant ssh works.

which version of vagrant are you using ? can you set `config.ssh.insert_key = false` in your Vagrantfile — Frederic Henri, Jan 04 '16 at 20:42
argh ! had an error like this once .. so lets try to 1. remove the private_key file generated by vagrant under .vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/ (not the .vagrant.d but local .vagrant) 2. redownload the key file into the VM so ssh into the VM and do `curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mitchellh/vagrant/master/keys/vagrant.pub > ~/.ssh/authorized_keys 3. keep config.ssh.insert_key = false and vagrant up again and ssh will hopefully work — Frederic Henri, Jan 04 '16 at 20:54
Actually, I do not have a private key in `.vagrant/machines/default/virtualbox/`. There are four files there: `id`, `index_uuid`, `action_set_name`, `creator_uid`. Should I try to redownload a key without deleting anything? — Gino Pane, Jan 04 '16 at 20:57
@FrédéricHenri, yep, but it is basic. Only suggested line was added. https://yadi.sk/d/bEvrlJIxmfpen — Gino Pane, Jan 04 '16 at 21:42
@FrédéricHenri, I've added contents of Vagrantfile into a question. All commented lines are deleted there. — Gino Pane, Jan 05 '16 at 08:25
@FrédéricHenri it comes from the box after unpackaging. Or what do you mean by that? Should I run `vagrant package --vagrantfile Vagrantfile` after any changes made to `Vagrantfile`? — Gino Pane, Jan 05 '16 at 11:27

Vince Macbuche · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-28T16:15:34.470

I had the same issue with vagrant 1.8.1, on several boxes I use (ie: geerlingguy/centos6)

I didn't have any problem with Vagrant 1.7 on those boxes.

After some research on why i could not ssh in that box, it appears that /home/vagrant on the box had 755 permissions and ssh prevent authentication to user with those permissions

extract of /var/log/secure:

Jan 28 15:11:36 server sshd[11721]: Authentication refused: bad ownership or modes for directory /home/vagrant

To fix that vm, I only have to change the permissions /home/vagrant (did a chmod 700 on it) and now i can ssh directly into my boxes

I don't knwo how to fix it directly I think you should modify your box directly

Hope this helps!

edit: I thought it was a shared folder from the host but it's /vagrant that is shared not /home/vagrant

Thanks! Hope, it's the reason. – Gino Pane Jan 28 '16 at 20:27 — Gino Pane, Jan 28 '16 at 20:27

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 23 '21 at 00:34

0

I had this old setting at the top of ~/.ssh/config.

PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes ssh-dss,ssh-rsa

After removing it, vagrant ssh stopped asking for password.

answered Jun 23 '21 at 00:34

Takamitsu Mizutori

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 02 '22 at 08:43

If you saved your Vagrantfile on an external HardDrive and use exfat because you are working cross platform like me, you will also encounter this error. Since exfat does not save permissions, ssh will always think that the private keys permission is 777 => to open.

I put together this script as a workaround which runs on powershell and bash (so compatible with Linux, Mac and Windows):

# ssh-agent # uncomment if your ssh-agent isn't running as a service
cat V:\vm\arch_template\.vagrant\machines\default\virtualbox\private_key | ssh-add -
ssh -p 2222 -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no vagrant@localhost

It requieres a working ssh-agent configuration. Also pay attantion to the correct port! Vagrant changes it to a different port if 2222 isn't availabe during vagrant up.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 29 '23 at 23:00

I had the same issue of vagrant requesting password. To solve it I had to

regenerate an ssh-key (might not be necessary but I did it anyway). Just run ssh-keygen and when prompted save the key to .vagrant/machines/default/libvirt/private_key.pub (on your Vagrantfile directory)
copy the ssh-key to the VM. Get the vm IP / PORT with vagrant ssh-config and run ssh-copy-id -i .vagrant/machines/default/libvirt/private_key -p PORT vagrant@IP (replace your PORT and IP). When prompted don't give it a passphrase

After that you should be able to login without being prompted for password

score -1 · Answer 5 · edited Jan 15 '23 at 10:55

-1

I had the same issue, getting vagrant@127.0.0.1's password: when starting up vagrant, after inputting the supposed password [vagrant], I could connect to the VM. However, after reading through other solutions, I tried ssh-agent on the same directory where the vagrantfile that was initiated is, and vagrant-ssh, and I am able to connect to the running instance.

edited Jan 15 '23 at 10:55

Fedor

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answered Jan 12 '23 at 10:11

Obasoro Olakunle

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Vagrant ssh promtps for password

5 Answers5